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BOOKS  BY 
WOODROW   WILSON 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE 
Profusely  illustrated.     5  volumes.     8vo 
Cloth 

Three-quarter  Calf 
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GEORGE  WASHINGTON.     Illustrated.    8vo 
Popular  Edition 

WHEN  A  MAN  COMES  TO  HIMSELF. 
16mo.     Cloth.     Leather 

ON  BEING  HUMAN 

16mo.     Cloth.     Leather 

THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 
16mo.     Cloth.     Leather 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 


THE  PRESIDENT 

OF  THE 

UNITED  STATES 


BY 
WOODROW    WILSON 

PH.D.,  Lrrr.D.,  LL.D. 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


HARPER    &   BROTHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 
M  C  M     •      X     •     V     •     I 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 


Copyright,   1916.  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Copyright,  1008,  by  The  Columbia  University  Press 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  August,  1916 

H-Q 


PUBLISHERS'    NOTE 

THIS  vivid  portrayal  of  "The 
President  of  the  United  States," 
which  appears  now  for  the  first  time 
in  separate  form,  was  written  by 
Woodrow  Wilson  when  he  was  Presi- 
dent of  Princeton  University  in  1908. 
At  that  time  he  had  no  thought  that 
he  would  occupy  the  great  office  of 
which  he  wrote.  It  is,  therefore,  of 
peculiar  interest  to  note  how  theory 
and  practice  have  met. 

In  presenting  this  brilliant  analysis 
of  the  historical  evolution  of  the 
presidential  office  the  publishers  de- 
sire to  offer  their  cordial  acknowl- 
edgments for  the  courteous  permis- 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE 

sion  which  has  been  given  to  repro- 
duce this  study  from  Constitutional 
Government  in  the  United  States,  by 
Woodrow  Wilson,  published  by  the 
Columbia  University  Press  in  1908. 


THE    PRESIDENT   OF   THE 
UNITED    STATES 


THE   PRESIDENT   OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES 


IT  is  difficult  to  describe  any  single 
part  of  a  great  governmental 
system  without  describing  the  whole 
of  it.  Governments  are  living  things 
and  operate  as  organic  wholes.  More- 
over, governments  have  their  natural 
evolution  and  are  one  thing  in  one 
age,  another  in  another.  The  makers 
of  the  Constitution  constructed  the 
federal  government  upon  a  theory  of 
checks  and  balances  which  was 
meant  to  limit  the  operation  of  each 

m 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

part  and  allow  to  no  single  part  or 
organ  of  it  a  dominating  force;  but 
no  government  can  be  successfully 
conducted  upon  so  mechanical  a 
theory.  Leadership  and  control 
must  be  lodged  somewhere;  the 
whole  art  of  statesmanship  is  the 
art  of  bringing  the  several  parts  of 
government  into  effective  coopera- 
tion for  the  accomplishment  of  par- 
ticular common  objects, — and  party 
objects  at  that.  Our  study  of  each 
part  of  our  federal  system,  if  we  are 
to  discover  our  real  government  as 
it  lives,  must  be  made  to  disclose  to 
us  its  operative  coordination  as  a 
whole:  its  places  of  leadership,  its 
method  of  action,  how  it  operates, 
what  checks  it,  what  gives  it  energy 
and  effect.  Governments  are  what 
politicians  make  them,  and  it  is  easier 

[2] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

to  write  of  the  President  than  of  the 
presidency. 

The  government  of  the  United 
States  was  constructed  upon  the 
Whig  theory  of  political  dynamics, 
which  was  a  sort  of  unconscious  copy 
of  the  Newtonian  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse. In  our  own  day,  whenever 
we  discuss  the  structure  or  develop- 
ment of  anything,  whether  in  nature 
or  in  society,  we  consciously  or  un- 
consciously follow  Mr.  Darwin;  but 
before  Mr.  Darwin,  they  followed 
Newton.  Some  single  law,  like  the 
law  of  gravitation,  swung  each  sys- 
tem of  thought  and  gave  it  its  princi- 
ple of  unity.  Every  sun,  every 
planet,  every  free  body  in  the  spaces 
of  the  heavens,  the  world  itself,  is 
kept  in  its  place  and  reined  to  its 
course  by  the  attraction  of  bodies 

[3] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

that  swing  with  equal  order  and  pre- 
cision about  it,  themselves  governed 
by  the  nice  poise  and  balance  of 
forces  which  give  the  whole  system  of 
the  universe  its  symmetry  and  per- 
fect adjustment.  The  Whigs  had 
tried  to  give  England  a  similar  con- 
stitution. They  had  had  no  wish  to 
destroy  the  throne,  no  conscious  de- 
sire to  reduce  the  king  to  a  mere 
figurehead,  but  had  intended  only  to 
surround  and  offset  him  with  a  sys- 
tem of  constitutional  checks  and  bal- 
ances which  should  regulate  his 
otherwise  arbitrary  course  and  make 
it  at  least  always  calculable. 

They  had  made  no  clear  analysis 
of  the  matter  in  their  own  thoughts; 
it  has  not  been  the  habit  of  English 
politicians,  or  indeed  of  English- 
speaking  politicians  on  either  side  of 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

the  water,  to  be  clear  theorists.  It 
was  left  to  a  Frenchman  to  point  out 
to  the  Whigs  what  they  had  done. 
They  had  striven  to  make  Parlia- 
ment so  influential  in  the  making  of 
laws  and  so  authoritative  in  the 
criticism  of  the  king's  policy  that  the 
king  could  in  no  matter  have  his 
own  way  without  their  cooperation 
and  assent,  though  they  left  him  free, 
the  while,  if  he  chose,  to  interpose 
an  absolute  veto  upon  the  acts  of 
Parliament.  They  had  striven  to 
secure  for  the  courts  of  law  as  great 
an  independence  as  possible,  so  that 
they  might  be  neither  overawed  by 
Parliament  nor  coerced  by  the  king. 
In  brief,  as  Montesquieu  pointed  out 
to  them  in  his  lucid  way,  they  had 
sought  to  balance  executive,  legisla- 
ture, and  judiciary  off  against  one 

[5] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

another  by  a  series  of  checks  and 
counterpoises,  which  Newton  might 
readily  have  recognized  as  suggestive 
of  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens. 

The  makers  of  our  federal  Con- 
stitution followed  the  scheme  as  they 
found  it  expounded  in  Montesquieu, 
followed  it  with  genuine  scientific 
enthusiasm.  The  admirable  exposi- 
tions of  the  Federalist  read  like 
thoughtful  applications  of  Montes- 
quieu to  the  political  needs  and  cir- 
cumstances of  America.  They  are 
full  of  the  theory  of  checks  and  bal- 
ances. The  President  is  balanced  off 
against  Congress,  Congress  against 
the  President,  and  each  against  the 
courts.  Our  statesmen  of  the  earlier 
generations  quoted  no  one  so  often 
as  Montesquieu,  and  they  quoted 
him  always  as  a  scientific  standard  in 

[6] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

the  field  of  politics.  Politics  is 
turned  into  mechanics  under  his 
touch.  The  theory  of  gravitation  is 
supreme. 

The  trouble  with  the  theory  is  that 
government  is  not  a  machine,  but  a 
living  thing.  It  falls,  not  under  the 
theory  of  the  universe,  but  under 
the  theory  of  organic  life.  It  is  ac- 
countable to  Darwin,  not  to  Newton. 
It  is  modified  by  its  environment, 
necessitated  by  its  tasks,  shaped  to 
its  functions  by  the  sheer  pressure  of 
life.  No  living  thing  can  have  its 
organs  offset  against  each  other  as 
checks,  and  live.  On  the  contrary, 
its  life  is  dependent  upon  their  quick 
cooperation,  their  ready  response  to 
the  commands  of  instinct  or  intelli- 
gence, their  amicable  community  of 
purpose.  Government  is  not  a  body 

[71 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

of  blind  forces;  it  is  a  body  of  men, 
with  highly  differentiated  functions, 
no  doubt,  in  our  modern  day  of 
specialization,  but  with  a  common 
task  and  purpose.  Their  cooperation 
is  indispensable,  their  warfare  fatal. 
There  can  be  no  successful  govern- 
ment without  leadership  or  without 
the  intimate,  almost  instinctive,  co- 
ordination of  the  organs  of  life  and 
action.  This  is  not  theory,  but  fact, 
and  displays  its  force  as  fact,  what- 
ever theories  may  be  thrown  across 
its  track.  Living  political  constitu- 
tions must  be  Darwinian  in  structure 
and  in  practice. 


[8] 


THE   UNITED  STATES 


II 

FORTUNATELY,  the  defini- 
tions and  prescriptions  of  our 
constitutional  law,  though  conceived 
in  the  Newtonian  spirit  and  upon  the 
Newtonian  principle,  are  sufficiently 
broad  and  elastic  to  allow  for  the  play 
of  life  and  circumstance.  Though 
they  were  Whig  theorists,  the  men 
who  framed  the  federal  Constitution 
were  also  practical  statesmen  with 
an  experienced  eye  for  affairs  and  a 
quick  practical  sagacity  in  respect 
of  the  actual  structure  of  govern- 
ment, and  they  have  given  us  a 
thoroughly  workable  model.  If  it 
had  in  fact  been  a  machine  governed 

2  [9] 


THE  PRESIDENT   OF 

by  mechanically  automatic  balances, 
it  would  have  had  no  history;  but 
it  was  not,  and  its  history  has  been 
rich  with  the  influences  and  person- 
alities of  the  men  who  have  con- 
ducted it  and  made  it  a  living  reality. 
The  government  of  the  United  States 
has  had  a  vital  and  normal  organic 
growth  and  has  proved  itself  emi- 
nently adapted  to  express  the  chang- 
ing temper  and  purposes  of  the 
American  people  from  age  to  age. 

That  is  the  reason  why  it  is  easier 
to  write  of  the  President  than  of  the 
presidency.  The  presidency  has  been 
one  thing  at  one  time,  another  at 
another,  varying  with  the  man  who 
occupied  the  office  and  with  the  cir- 
cumstances that  surrounded  him. 
One  account  must  be  given  of  the 
office  during  the  period  1789  to  1825, 

[10] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

when  the  government  was  getting  its 
footing  both  at  home  and  abroad, 
struggling  for  its  place  among  the 
nations  and  its  full  credit  among  its 
own  people;  when  English  prece- 
dents and  traditions  were  strongest; 
and  when  the  men  chosen  for  the 
office  were  men  bred  to  leadership  in 
a  way  that  attracted  to  them  the 
attention  and  confidence  of  the  whole 
country.  Another  account  must  be 
given  of  it  during  Jackson's  time, 
when  an  imperious  man,  bred  not  in 
deliberative  assemblies  or  quiet  coun- 
cils, but  in  the  field  and  upon  a 
rough  frontier,  worked  his  own  will 
upon  affairs,  with  or  without  formal 
sanction  of  law,  sustained  by  a  clear 
undoubting  conscience  and  the  love 
of  a  people  who  had  grown  deeply 
impatient  of  the  regime  he  had  sup- 
[ii] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

planted.  Still  another  account  must 
be  given  of  it  during  the  years  1836 
to  1861,  when  domestic  affairs  of 
many  debatable  kinds  absorbed  the 
country,  when  Congress  necessarily 
exercised  the  chief  choices  of  policy, 
and  when  the  Presidents  who  fol- 
lowed one  another  in  office  lacked 
the  personal  force  and  initiative  to 
make  for  themselves  a  leading  place 
in  counsel.  After  that  came  the 
Civil  War  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  unique 
task  and  achievement,  when  the  ex- 
ecutive seemed  for  a  little  while  to 
become  by  sheer  stress  of  circum- 
stances the  whole  government,  Con- 
gress merely  voting  supplies  and 
assenting  to  necessary  laws,  as  Par- 
liament did  in  the  time  of  the  Tudors. 
From  1865  to  1898  domestic  ques- 
tions, legislative  matters  in  respect 

[12] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

of  which  Congress  had  naturally  to 
make  the  initial  choice,  legislative 
leaders  the  chief  decisions  of  policy, 
came  once  more  to  the  front,  and 
no  President  except  Mr.  Cleveland 
played  a  leading  and  decisive  part 
in  the  quiet  drama  of  our  national 
life.  Even  Mr.  Cleveland  may  be 
said  to  have  owed  his  great  role  in 
affairs  rather  to  his  o\vn  native  force 
and  the  confused  politics  of  the  time, 
than  to  any  opportunity  of  leader- 
ship naturally  afforded  him  by  a  sys- 
tem which  had  subordinated  so  many 
Presidents  before  him  to  Congress. 
The  war  with  Spain  again  changed 
the  balance  of  parts.  Foreign  ques- 
tions became  leading  questions  again, 
as  they  had  been  in  the  first  days  of 
the  government,  and  in  them  the 
President  was  of  necessity  leader. 

[13] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

Our  new  place  in  the  affairs  of  the 
world  has  since  that  year  of  trans- 
formation kept  him  at  the  front  of 
our  government,  where  our  own 
thoughts  and  the  attention  of  men 
everywhere  is  centred  upon  him. 

Both  men  and  circumstances  have 
created  these  contrasts  in  the  admin- 
istration and  influence  of  the  office  of 
President.  We  have  all  been  disciples 
of  Montesquieu,  but  we  have  also 
been  practical  politicians.  Mr.  B age- 
hot  once  remarked  that  it  was  no 
proof  of  the  excellence  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  that 
the  Americans  had  operated  it  with 
conspicuous  success  because  the 
Americans  could  run  any  constitu- 
tion successfully;  and,  while  the 
compliment  is  altogether  acceptable, 
it  is  certainly  true,  that  our  prac- 

[14] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

tical  sense  is  more  noticeable  than 
our  theoretical  consistency,  and  that, 
while  we  were  once  all  constitutional 
.lawyers,  we  are  in  these  latter  days 
apt  to  be  very  impatient  of  literal 
and  dogmatic  interpretations  of  con- 
stitutional principle. 

The  makers  of  the  Constitution 
seem  to  have  thought  of  the  Presi- 
dent as  what  the  stricter  Whig  the- 
orists wished  the  king  to  be:  only 
the  legal  executive,  the  presiding  and 
guiding  authority  in  the  application 
of  law  and  the  execution  of  policy. 
His  veto  upon  legislation  was  only 
his  "check"  on  Congress,  —  was  a 
power  of  restraint,  not  of  guidance. 
He  was  empowered  to  prevent  bad 
laws,  but  he  was  not  to  be  given  an 
opportunity  to  make  good  ones.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  he  has  become  very 

[15] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

much  more.  He  has  become  the 
leader  of  his  party  and  the  guide  of 
the  nation  in  political  purpose,  and 
therefore  in  legal  action.  The  con- 
stitutional structure  of  the  govern- 
ment has  hampered  and  limited  his 
action  in  these  significant  roles,  but 
it  has  not  prevented  it.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  President  has  varied  with 
the  men  who  have  been  Presidents 
and  with  the  circumstances  of  their 
times,  but  the  tendency  has  been 
unmistakably  disclosed,  and  springs 
out  of  the  very  nature  of  govern- 
ment itself.  It  is  merely  the  proof 
that  our  government  is  a  living, 
organic  thing,  and  must,  like  every 
other  government,  work  out  the 
close  synthesis  of  active  parts  which 
can  exist  only  when  leadership  is 
lodged  in  some  one  man  or  group  of 

[16] 


THE   UNITED  STATES 

men.  You  cannot  compound  a  suc- 
cessful government  out  of  antag- 
onisms. Greatly  as  the  practice  and 
influence  of  Presidents  has  varied, 
there  can  be  no  mistaking  the  fact 
that  we  have  grown  more  and  more 
inclined  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion to  look  to  the  President  as  the 
unifying  force  in  our  complex  system, 
the  leader  both  of  his  party  and  of 
the  nation.  To  do  so  is  not  inconsist- 
ent with  the  actual  provisions  of 
the  Constitution;  it  is  only  incon- 
sistent with  a  very  mechanical  theory 
of  its  meaning  and  intention.  The 
Constitution  contains  no  theories.  It 
is  as  practical  a  document  as  Magna 
Carta. 


[17] 


THE   PRESIDENT  OF 


III 

THE  role  of  party  leader  is 
forced  upon  the  President  by 
the  method  of  his  selection.  The 
theory  of  the  makers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion may  have  been  that  the  presi- 
dential electors  would  exercise  a  real 
choice,  but  it  is  hard  to  understand 
how,  as  experienced  politicians,  they 
can  have  expected  anything  of  the 
kind.  They  did  not  provide  that 
the  electors  should  meet  as  one  body 
for  consultation  and  make  deliberate 
choice  of  a  President  and  Viee- 
President,  but  that  they  should  meet 
"in  their  respective  states"  and  cast 
their  ballots  in  separate  groups, 
US] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

without  the  possibility  of  consulting 
and  without  the  least  likelihood  of 
agreeing,  unless  some  such  means  as 
have  actually  been  used  were  em- 
ployed to  suggest  and  determine 
their  choice  beforehand.  It  was  the 
practice  at  first  to  make  party  nom- 
inations for  the  presidency  by  con- 
gressional caucus.  Since  the  Demo- 
cratic upheaval  of  General  Jackson's 
time  nominating  conventions  have 
taken  the  place  of  congressional  cau- 
cuses; and  the  choice  of  Presidents 
by  party  conventions  has  had  some 
very  interesting  results. 

We  are  apt  to  think  of  the  choice 
of  nominating  conventions  as  some- 
what haphazard.  We  know,  or  think 
that  we  know,  how  their  action 
is  sometimes  determined,  and  the 
knowledge  makes  us  very  uneasy. 

[19] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

We  know  that  there  is  no  debate  in 
nominating  conventions,  no  discus- 
sion of  the  merits  of  the  respective 
candidates,  at  which  the  country  can 
sit  as  audience  and  assess  the  wisdom 
of  the  final  choice.  If  there  is  any 
talking  to  be  done,  aside  from  the 
formal  addresses  of  the  temporary 
and  permanent  chairmen  and  of 
those  who  present  the  platform  and 
the  names  of  the  several  aspirants 
for  nomination,  the  assembly  ad- 
journs. The  talking  that  is  to  decide 
the  result  must  be  done  in  private 
committee-rooms  and  behind  the 
closed  doors  of  the  headquarters  of 
the  several  state  delegations  to  the 
convention.  The  intervals  between 
sessions  are  filled  with  a  very  feverish 
activity.  Messengers  run  from  one 
headquarters  to  another  until  the 

[20] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

small  hours  of  the  morning.  Con- 
ference follows  conference  in  a  way 
that  is  likely  to  bring  newspaper  cor- 
respondents to  the  verge  of  despair, 
it  being  next  to  impossible  to  put  the 
rumors  together  into  any  coherent 
story  of  what  is  going  on.  Only  at 
the  rooms  of  the  national  committee 
of  the  party  is  there  any  clear  knowl- 
edge of  the  situation  as  a  whole; 
and  the  excitement  of  the  members 
of  the  convention  rises  from  session 
to  session  under  the  sheer  pressure  of 
uncertainty.  The  final  majority  is 
compounded  no  outsider  and  few 
members  can  tell  how. 

Many  influences,  too,  play  upon 
nominating  conventions,  which  seem 
mere  winds  of  feeling.  They  sit  in 
great  halls,  with  galleries  into  which 
crowd  thousands  of  spectators  from 

[21] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

all  parts  of  the  country,  but  chiefly, 
of  course,  from  the  place  at  which 
the  convention  sits,  and  the  feeling 
of  the  galleries  is  transmitted  to  the 
floor.  The  cheers  of  mere  spectators 
echo  the  names  of  popular  candi- 
dates, and  every  excitement  on  the 
floor  is  enhanced  a  hundredfold  in 
the  galleries.  Sudden  gusts  of  im- 
pulse are  apt  to  change  the  whole 
feeling  of  the  convention,  and  offset 
in  a  moment  the  most  careful  ar- 
rangements of  managing  politicians. 
It  has  come  to  be  a  commonly  ac- 
cepted opinion  that  if  the  Republican 
convention  of  1860  had  not  met  in 
Chicago,  it  would  have  nominated 
Mr.  Seward  and  not  Mr.  Lincoln. 
Mr.  Seward  was  the  acknowledged 
leader  of  the  new  party;  had  been 
its  most  telling  spokesman;  had 

[22] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

given  its  tenets  definition  and  cur- 
rency. Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  been 
brought  within  view  of  the  country 
as  a  whole  until  the  other  day,  when 
he  had  given  Mr.  Douglas  so  hard  a 
fight  to  keep  his  seat  in  the  Senate, 
and  had  but  just  now  given  currency 
among  thoughtful  men  to  the  strik- 
ing phrases  of  the  searching  speeches 
he  had  made  in  debate  with  his  prac- 
tised antagonist.  But  the  convention 
met  in  Illinois,  amidst  throngs  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  ardent  friends  and  ad- 
vocates. His  managers  saw  to  it  that 
the  galleries  were  properly  filled  with 
men  wTho  would  cheer  every  men- 
tion of  his  name  until  the  hall  was 
shaken.  Every  influence  of  the  place 
worked  for  him  and  he  was  chosen. 
Thoughtful  critics  of  our  political 
practices  have  not  allowed  the  ex- 

[23] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

cellence  of  the  choice  to  blind  them 
to  the  danger  of  the  method.  They 
have  known  too  many  examples  of 
what  the  galleries  have  done  to  sup- 
plement the  efforts  of  managing  poli- 
ticians to  feel  safe  in  the  presence  of 
processes  which  seem  rather  those 
of  intrigue  and  impulse  than  those 
of  sober  choice.  They  can  cite  in- 
stances, moreover,  of  sudden,  un- 
looked-for excitements  on  the  floor 
of  such  bodies  which  have  swept 
them  from  the  control  of  all  sober 
influences  and  hastened  them  to 
choices  which  no  truly  deliberative 
assembly  could  ever  have  made. 
There  is  no  training-school  for  Presi- 
dents, unless,  as  some  governors 
have  wished,  it  be  looked  for  in  the 
governorships  of  states;  and  nom- 
inating conventions  have  confined 

[24] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

themselves  in  their  selections  to  no 
class,  have  demanded  of  aspirants  no 
particular  experience  or  knowledge 
of  affairs.  They  have  nominated 
lawyers  without  political  experience, 
soldiers,  editors  of  newspapers,  news- 
paper correspondents,  whom  they 
pleased,  without  regard  to  their  lack 
of  contact  with  affairs.  It  would 
seem  as  if  their  choices  were  almost 
matters  of  chance. 

In  reality  there  is  much  more 
method,  much  more  definite  purpose, 
much  more  deliberate  choice  in  the 
extraordinary  process  than  there 
seems  to  be.  The  leading  spirits  of 
the  national  committee  of  each  party 
could  give  an  account  of  the  matter 
which  would  put  a  very  different 
face  on  it  and  make  the  methods  of 
nominating  conventions  seem,  for  all 

3  [25] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

the  undoubted  elements  of  chance 
there  are  in  them,  on  the  whole  very 
manageable.  *  Moreover,  the  party 
that  expects  to  win  may  be  counted 
on  to  make  a  much  more  conserva- 
tive and  thoughtful  selection  of  a 
candidate  than  the  party  that  merely 
hopes  to  win.  The  haphazard  selec- 
tions which  seem  to  discredit  the 
system  are  generally  made  by  con- 
ventions of  the  party  unaccustomed 
to  success.  Success  brings  sober  cal- 
culation and  a  sense  of  responsibility. 
And  it  must  be  remembered  also 
that  our  political  system  is  not  so 
coordinated  as  to  supply  a  training 
for  presidential  aspirants  or  even  to 
make  it  absolutely  necessary  that 
they  should  have  had  extended  ex- 
perience in  public  affairs.  Certainly 
the  country  has  never  thought  of 

126] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

members  of  Congress  as  in  any  par- 
ticular degree  fitted  for  the  presi- 
dency. Even  the  Vice-President  is 
not  afforded  an  opportunity  to  learn 
the  duties  of  the  office.  The  men 
best  prepared,  no  doubt,  are  those 
who  have  been  governors  of  states 
or  members  of  cabinets.  And  yet 
even  they  are  chosen  for  their  re- 
spective offices  generally  by  reason 
of  a  kind  of  fitness  and  availability 
which  does  not  necessarily  argue  in 
them  the  size  and  power  that  would 
fit  them  for  the  greater  office.  In 
our  earlier  practice  cabinet  officers 
were  regarded  as  in  the  natural  line 
of  succession  to  the  presidency.  Mr. 
Jefferson  had  been  in  General  Wash- 
ington's cabinet,  Mr.  Madison  in 
Mr.  Jefferson's,  Mr.  Monroe  in  Mr. 
Madison's;  and  generally  it  was  the 

[27] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

Secretary  of  State  who  was  taken. 
But  those  were  days  when  English 
precedent  was  strong  upon  us,  when 
cabinets  were  expected  to  be  made 
up  of  the  political  leaders  of  the  party 
in  power;  and  from  their  ranks  sub- 
sequent candidates  for  the  presi- 
dency were  most  likely  to  be  selected. 
The  practice,  as  we  look  back  to  it, 
seems  eminently  sensible,  and  we 
wonder  why  it  should  have  been  so 
soon  departed  from  and  apparently 
forgotten.  We  wonder,  too,  why 
eminent  senators  have  not  some- 
times been  chosen;  why  members  of 
the  House  have  so  seldom  com- 
manded the  attention  of  nominating 
conventions;  why  public  life  has 
never  offered  itself  in  any  definite 
way  as  a  preparation  for  the  presi- 
dential office. 

[28] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

If  the  matter  be  looked  at  a  little 
more  closely,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
office  of  President,  as  we  have  used 
and  developed  it,  really  does  not  de- 
mand actual  experience  in  affairs  so 
much  as  particular  qualities  of  mind 
and  character  which  we  are  at  least 
as  likely  to  find  outside  the  ranks 
of  our  public  men  as  within  them. 
What  is  it  that  a  nominating  con- 
vention wants  in  the  man  it  is  to 
present  to  the  country  for  its  suf- 
frages? A  man  who  will  be  and  who 
will  seem  to  the  country  in  some  sort 
an  embodiment  of  the  character  and 
purpose  it  wishes  its  government  to 
have, — a  man  who  understands  his 
own  day  and  the  needs  of  the  coun- 
try, and  who  has  the  personality  and 
the  initiative  to  enforce  his  views 
both  upon  the  people  and  upon  Con- 

[29] 


THE   PRESIDENT  OF 

gress.  It  may  seem  an  odd  way  to 
get  such  a  man.  It  is  even  possible 
that  nominating  conventions  and 
those  who  guide  them  do  not  realize 
entirely  what  it  is  that  they  do. 
But  in  simple  fact  the  convention 
picks  out  a  party  leader  from  the 
body  of  the  nation.  Not  that  it  ex- 
pects its  nominee  to  direct  the  in- 
terior government  of  the  party  and 
to  supplant  its  already  accredited 
and  experienced  spokesmen  in  Con- 
gress and  in  its  state  and  national 
committees;  but  it  does  of  necessity 
expect  him  to  represent  it  before 
public  opinion  and  to  stand  before 
the  country  as  its  representative 
man,  as  a  true  type  of  what  the 
country  may  expect  of  the  party 
itself  in  purpose  and  principle.  It 
cannot  but  be  led  by  him  in  the 

[30] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

campaign;  if  he  be  elected,  it  cannot 
but  acquiesce  in  his  leadership  of  the 
government  itself.  What  the  coun- 
try will  demand  of  the  candidate 
will  be,  not  that  he  be  an  astute 
politician,  skilled  and  practised  in 
affairs,  but  that  he  be  a  man  such 
as  it  can  trust,  in  character,  in  inten- 
tion, in  knowledge  of  its  needs,  in 
perception  of  the  best  means  by 
which  those  needs  may  be  met,  in 
capacity  to  prevail  by  reason  of  his 
own  weight  and  integrity.  Some- 
times the  country  believes  in  a  party, 
but  more  often  it  believes  in  a  man; 
and  conventions  have  often  shown 
the  instinct  to  perceive  which  it  is 
that  the  country  needs  in  a  particu- 
lar presidential  year,  a  mere  repre- 
sentative partisan,  a  military  hero, 
or  some  one  who  will  genuinely  speak 

[31] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

for  the  country  itself,  whatever  be 
his  training  and  antecedents.  It  is 
in  this  sense  that  the  President  has 
the  role  of  party  leader  thrust  upon 
him  by  the  very  method  by  which 
he  is  chosen. 


[32] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 


IV 

AS  legal  executive,  his  constitu- 
tional aspect,  the  President 
cannot  be  thought  of  alone.  He 
cannot  execute  laws.  Their  actual 
daily  execution  must  be  taken  care 
of  by  the  several  executive  depart- 
ments and  by  the  now  innumerable 
body  of  federal  officials  throughout 
the  country.  In  respect  of  the  strict- 
ly executive  duties  of  his  office  the 
President  may  be  said  to  administer 
the  presidency  in  conjunction  with 
the  members  of  his  cabinet,  like  the 
chairman  of  a  commission.  He  is 
even  of  necessity  much  less  active  in 
the  actual  carrying  out  of  the  law 

[33] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

than  are  his  colleagues  and  advisers. 
It  is  therefore  becoming  more  and 
more  true,  as  the  business  of  the 
government  becomes  more  and  more 
complex  and  extended,  that  the 
President  is  becoming  more  and  more 
a  political  and  less  and  less  an  execu- 
tive officer.  His  executive  powers 
are  in  commission,  while  his  political 
powers  more  and  more  centre  and 
accumulate  upon  him  and  are  in 
their  very  nature  personal  and  in- 
alienable. 

Only  the  larger  sort  of  executive 
questions  are  brought  to  him.  De- 
partments which  run  with  easy  rou- 
tine and  whose  transactions  bring 
few  questions  of  general  policy  to 
the  surface  may  proceed  with  their 
business  for  months  and  even  years 
together  without  demanding  his  at- 

[34] 


THE  UNITED   STATES 

tention;  and  no  department  is  in  any 
sense  under  his  direct  charge.  Cab- 
inet meetings  do  not  discuss  detail: 
they  are  concerned  only  with  the 
larger  matters  of  policy  or  expedi- 
ency which  important  business  is 
constantly  disclosing.  There  are  no 
more  hours  in  the  President's  day 
than  in  another  man's.  If  he  is 
indeed  the  executive,  he  must  act 
almost  entirely  by  delegation,  and 
is  in  the  hands  of  his  colleagues.  He 
is  likely  to  be  praised  if  things  go 
well,  and  blamed  if  they  go  wrong; 
but  his  only  real  control  is  of  the 
persons  to  whom  he  deputes  the 
performance  of  executive  duties.  It 
is  through  no  fault  or  neglect  of  his 
that  the  duties  apparently  assigned 
to  him  by  the  Constitution  have 
come  to  be  his  less  conspicuous,  less 

[35] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

important  duties,  and  that  duties 
apparently  not  assigned  to  him  at 
all  chiefly  occupy  his  time  and  en- 
ergy. The  one  set  of  duties  it  has 
proved  practically  impossible  for  him 
to  perform;  the  other  it  has  proved 
impossible  for  him  to  escape. 

He  cannot  escape  being  the  leader 
of  his  party  except  by  incapacity 
and  lack  of  personal  force,  because 
he  is  at  once  the  choice  of  the  party 
and  of  the  nation.  He  is  the  party 
nominee,  and  the  only  party  nomi- 
nee for  whom  the  whole  nation  votes. 
Members  of  the  House  and  Senate 
are  representatives  of  localities,  are 
voted  for  only  by  sections  of  voters. 
There  is  no  national  party  choice 
except  that  of  President.  No  one 
else  represents  the  people  as  a  whole, 
exercising  a  national  choice;  and  in- 

[36] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

asmuch  as  his  strictly  executive  du- 
ties are  in  fact  subordinated,  so  far, 
at  any  rate,  as  all  detail  is  concerned, 
the  President  represents  not  so  much 
the  party's  governing  efficiency  as 
its  controlling  ideals  and  principles. 
He  is  not  so  much  part  of  its  organi- 
zation as  its  vital  link  of  connection 
with  the  thinking  nation.  He  can 
dominate  his  party  by  being  spokes- 
man for  the  real  sentiment  and  pur- 
pose of  the  country,  by  giving  direc- 
tion to  opinion,  by  giving  the  country 
at  once  the  information  and  the 
statements  of  policy  which  will  en- 
able it  to  form  its  judgments  alike 
of  parties  and  of  men. 

For  he  is  also  the  political  leader 
of  the  nation,  or  has  it  in  his  choice 
to  be.  The  nation  as  a  whole  has 
chosen  him,  and  is  conscious  that  it 

[37] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

has  no  other  political  spokesman. 
His  is  the  only  national  voice  in 
affairs.  Let  him  once  win  the  admi- 
ration and  confidence  of  the  country, 
and  no  other  single  force  can  with- 
stand him,  no  combination  of  forces 
will  easily  overpower  him.  His  po- 
sition takes  the  imagination  of  the 
country.  He  is  the  representative 
of  no  constituency,  but  of  the  whole 
people.  When  he  speaks  in  his  true 
character,  he  speaks  for  no  special 
interest.  If  he  rightly  interpret  the 
national  thought  and  boldly  insist 
upon  it,  he  is  irresistible;  and  the 
country  never  feels  the  zest  of  action 
so  much  as  when  its  President  is  of 
such  insight  and  calibre.  Its  in- 
stinct is  for  unified  action,  and  it 
craves  a  single  leader.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  it  will  often  prefer  to 

[88] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

choose  a  man  rather  than  a  party. 
A  President  whom  it  trusts  cannot 
only  lead  it,  but  form  it  to  his  own 
views. 

It  is  the  extraordinary  isolation 
imposed  upon  the  President  by  our 
system  that  makes  the  character  and 
opportunity  of  his  office  so  extraor- 
dinary. In  him  are  centred  both 
opinion  and  party.  He  may  stand, 
if  he  will,  a  little  outside  party  and 
insist  as  if  it  were  upon  the  general 
opinion.  -It  is  with  the  instinctive 
feeling  that  it  is  upon  occasion  such 
a  man  that  the  country  wants  that 
nominating  conventions  will  often 
nominate  men  who  are  not  their 
acknowledged  leaders,  but  only  such 
men  as  the  country  would  like  to  see 
lead  both  its  parties.  The  President 
may  also,  if  he  will,  stand  within  the 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

party  counsels  and  use  the  advan- 
tage of  his  power  and  personal  force 
to  control  its  actual  programs.  He 
may  be  both  the  leader  of  his  party 
and  the  leader  of  the  nation,  or  he 
may  be  one  or  the  other.  If  he  lead 
the  nation,  his  party  can  hardly  re- 
sist him.  His  office  is  anything  he 
has  the  sagacity  and  force  to  make  it. 
That  is  the  reason  why  it  has  been 
one  thing  at  one  time,  another  at 
another.  The  Presidents  who  have 
not  made  themselves  leaders  have 
lived  no  more  truly  on  that  account 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  than 
those  whose  force  has  told  in  the 
determination  of  law  and  policy.  No 
doubt  Andrew  Jackson  overstepped 
the  bounds  meant  to  be  set  to  the 
authority  of  his  office.  It  was  cer- 
tainly in  direct  contravention  of  the 

[40] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

spirit  of  the  Constitution  that  he 
should  have  refused  to  respect  and 
execute  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  and  no 
serious  student  of  our  history  can 
righteously  condone  what  he  did  in 
such  matters  on  the  ground  that  his 
intentions  were  upright  and  his  prin- 
ciples pure.  But  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  is  not  a  mere 
lawyers'  document:  it  is  a  vehicle  of 
life,  and  its  spirit  is  always  the  spirit 
of  the  age.  Its  prescriptions  are  clear 
and  we  know  what  they  are;  a  writ- 
ten document  makes  lawyers  of  us 
all,  and  our  duty  as  citizens  should 
make  us  conscientious  lawyers,  read- 
ing the  text  of  the  Constitution  with- 
out subtlety  or  sophistication;  but 
life  is  always  your  last  and  most 

authoritative  critic. 
4  [«] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

Some  of  our  Presidents  have  de- 
liberately held  themselves  off  from 
using  the  full  power  they  might 
legitimately  have  used,  because  of 
conscientious  scruples,  because  they 
were  more  theorists  than  statesmen. 
They  have  held  the  strict  literary 
theory  of  the  Constitution,  the  Whig 
theory,  the  Newtonian  theory,  and 
have  acted  as  if  they  thought  that 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  should  have 
been  even  longer  than  it  is;  that 
there  should  be  no  intimate  com- 
munication of  any  kind  between  the 
Capitol  and  the  White  House;  that 
the  President  as  a  man  was  no  more 
at  liberty  to  lead  the  houses  of  Con- 
gress by  persuasion  than  he  was  at 
liberty  as  President  to  dominate 
them  by  authority, — supposing  that 
he  had,  what  he  has  not,  authority 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

enough  to  dominate  them.  But  the 
makers  of  the  Constitution  were  not 
enacting  Whig  theory,  they  were  not 
making  laws  with  the  expectation 
that,  not  the  laws  themselves,  but 
their  opinions,  known  by  future  his- 
torians to  lie  back  of  them,  should 
govern  the  constitutional  action  of 
the  country.  They  were  statesmen, 
not  pedants,  and  their  laws  are  suffi- 
cient to  keep  us  to  the  paths  they 
set  us  upon.  The  President  is  at 
liberty,  both  in  law  and  conscience, 
to  be  as  big  a  man  as  he  can.  His 
capacity  will  set  the  limit;  and  if 
Congress  be  overborne  by  him,  it 
will  be  no  fault  of  the  makers  of  the 
Constitution, — it  will  be  from  no 
lack  of  constitutional  powers  on  its 
part,  but  only  because  the  President 
has  the  nation  behind  him,  and  Con- 

[43] 


THE   PRESIDENT  OF 

gress  has  not.  He  has  no  means  of 
compelling  Congress  except  through 
public  opinion. 

That  I  say  he  has  no  means  of 
compelling  Congress  will  show  what 
I  mean,  and  that  my  meaning  has 
no  touch  of  radicalism  or  iconoclasm 
in  it.  There  are  illegitimate  means 
by  which  the  President  may  influ- 
ence the  action  of  Congress.  He  may 
bargain  with  members,  not  only  with 
regard  to  appointments,  but  also 
with  regard  to  legislative  measures. 
He  may  use  his  local  patronage  to 
assist  members  to  get  or  retain  their 
seats.  He  may  interpose  his  power- 
ful influence,  in  one  covert  way  or 
another,  in  contests  for  places  in 
the  Senate.  He  may  also  overbear 
Congress  by  arbitrary  acts  which 
ignore  the  laws  or  virtually  override 

[44] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

them.  He  may  even  substitute  his 
own  orders  for  acts  of  Congress  which 
he  wants  but  cannot  get.  Such 
things  are  not  only  deeply  immoral, 
they  are  destructive  of  the  funda- 
mental understandings  of  constitu- 
tional government  and,  therefore,  of 
constitutional  government  itself. 
They  are  sure,  moreover,  in  a  coun- 
try of  free  public  opinion,  to  bring 
their  own  punishment,  to  destroy 
both  the  fame  and  the  power  of  the 
man  who  dares  to  practise  them.  No 
honorable  man  includes  such  agen- 
cies in  a  sober  exposition  of  the 
Constitution  or  allows  himself  to 
think  of  them  when  he  speaks  of  the 
influences  of  "life"  which  govern 
each  generation's  use  and  interpreta- 
tion of  that  great  instrument,  our 
sovereign  guide  and  the  object  of  our 

[45] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

deepest  reverence.  Nothing  in  a 
system  like  ours  can  be  constitu- 
tional which  is  immoral  or  which 
touches  the  good  faith  of  those  who 
have  sworn  to  obey  the  fundamental 
law.  The  reprobation  of  all  good 
men  will  always  overwhelm  such  in- 
fluences with  shame  and  failure.  But 
the  personal  force  of  the  President 
is  perfectly  constitutional  to  any  ex- 
tent to  which  he  chooses  to  exercise 
it,  and  it  is  by  the  clear  logic  of  our 
constitutional  practice  that  he  has 
become  alike  the  leader  of  his  party 
and  the  leader  of  the  nation. 


46 


THE  UNITED  STATES 


THE  political  powers  of  the  Presi- 
dent are  not  quite  so  obvious  in 
their  scope  and  character  when  we 
consider  his  relations  with  Congress  as 
when  we  consider  his  relations  to  his 
party  and  to  the  nation.  They  need, 
therefore,  a  somewhat  more  critical 
examination.  Leadership  in  govern- 
ment naturally  belongs  to  its  execu- 
tive officers,  who  are  daily  in  con- 
tact with  practical  conditions  and 
exigencies  and  whose  reputations 
alike  for  good  judgment  and  for 
fidelity  are  at  stake  much  more  than 
are  those  of  the  members  of  the 
legislative  body  at  every  turn  of  the 

[47] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

law's  application.  The  lawmaking 
part  of  the  government  ought  cer- 
tainly to  be  very  hospitable  to  the 
suggestions  of  the  planning  and  act- 
ing part  of  it.  Those  Presidents 
who  have  felt  themselves  bound  to 
adhere  to  the  strict  literary  theory 
of  the  Constitution  have  scrupu- 
lously refrained  from  attempting  to 
determine  either  the  subjects  or  the 
character  of  legislation,  except  so 
far  as  they  were  obliged  to  decide 
for  themselves,  after  Congress  had 
acted,  whether  they  should  acquiesce 
in  it  or  not.  And  yet  the  Constitu- 
tion explicitly  authorizes  the  Presi- 
dent to  recommend  to  Congress 
"such  measures  as  he  shall  deem 
necessary  and  expedient,"  and  it  is 
not  necessary  to  the  integrity  of  even 
the  literary  theory  of  the  Constitu- 

[48J 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

tion  to  insist  that  such  recommenda- 
tions should  be  merely  perfunctory. 
Certainly  General  Washington  did 
not  so  regard  them,  and  he  stood 
much  nearer  the  Whig  theory  than 
we  do.  A  President's  messages  to 
Congress  have  no  more  weight  or 
authority  than  their  intrinsic  reason- 
ableness and  importance  give  them: 
but  that  is  their  only  constitutional 
limitation.  The  Constitution  cer- 
tainly does  not  forbid  the  President 
to  back  them  up,  as  General  WTash- 
ington  did,  with  such  personal  force 
and  influence  as  he  may  possess. 
Some  of  our  Presidents  have  felt 
the  need,  which  unquestionably  ex- 
ists in  our  system,  for  some  spokes- 
man of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  in  mat- 
ters of  legislation  no  less  than  in 
other  matters,  and  have  tried  to 

[49] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

supply  Congress  with  the  leadership 
of  suggestion,  backed  by  argument 
and  by  iteration  and  by  every  legiti- 
mate appeal  to  public  opinion.  Cab- 
inet officers  are  shut  out  from  Con- 
gress; the  President  himself  has,  by 
custom,  no  access  to  its  floor;  many 
long-established  barriers  of  prece- 
dent, though  not  of  law,  hinder  him 
from  exercising  any  direct  influence 
upon  its  deliberations;  and  yet  he 
is  undoubteldy  the  only  spokesman 
of  the  whole  people.  They  have 
again  and  again,  as  often  as  they 
were  afforded  the  opportunity,  mani- 
fested their  satisfaction  when  he  has 
boldly  accepted  the  r61e  of  leader, 
to  which  the  peculiar  origin  and  char- 
acter of  his  authority  entitle  him. 
The  Constitution  bids  him  speak, 
and  times  of  stress  and  change  must 

[50] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

more  and  more  thrust  upon  him  the 
attitude  of  originator  of  policies. 

His  is  the  vital  place  of  action  in 
the  system,  whether  he  accept  it  as 
such  or  not,  and  the  office  is  the 
measure  of  the  man, — of  his  wisdom 
as  well  as  of  his  force.  His  veto 
abundantly  equips  him  to  stay  the 
hand  of  Congress  when  he  will.  It 
is  seldom  possible  to  pass  a  measure 
over  his  veto,  and  no  President  has 
hesitated  to  use  the  veto  when  his 
own  judgment  of  the  public  good  was 
seriously  at  issue  with  that  of  the 
houses.  The  veto  has  never  been 
suffered  to  fall  into  even  temporary 
disuse  with  us.  In  England  it  has 
ceased  to  exist,  with  the  change  in 
the  character  of  the  executive.  There 
has  been  no  veto  since  Anne's  day, 
because  ever  since  the  reign  of  Anne 

[51] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

the  laws  of  England  have  been  orig- 
inated either  by  ministers  who  spoke 
the  king's  own  will  or  by  ministers 
whom  the  king  did  not  dare  gainsay; 
and  in  our  own  time  the  ministers 
who  formulate  the  laws  are  them- 
selves the  executive  of  the  nation; 
a  veto  would  be  a  negative  upon 
their  own  power.  If  bills  pass  of 
which  they  disapprove,  they  resign 
and  give  place  to  the  leaders  of  those 
who  approve  them.  The  framers  of 
the  Constitution  made  in  our  Presi- 
dent a  more  powerful,  because  a 
more  isolated,  king  than  the  one  they 
were  imitating;  and  because  the 
Constitution  gave  them  their  veto  in 
such  explicit  terms,  our  Presidents 
have  not  hesitated  to  use  it,  even 
when  it  put  their  mere  individual 
judgment  against  that  of  large  ma- 

[52] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

jorities  in  both  houses  of  Congress. 
Arid  yet  in  the  exercise  of  the  power 
to  suggest  legislation,  quite  as  ex- 
plicitly conferred  upon  them  by  the 
Constitution,  some  of  our  Presidents 
have  seemed  to  have  a  timid  fear 
that  they  might  offend  some  law  of 
taste  which  had  become  a  constitu- 
tional principle. 

In  one  sense  their  messages  to  Con- 
gress have  no  more  authority  than 
the  letters  of  any  other  citizen  would 
have.  Congress  can  heed  or  ignore 
them  as  it  pleases;  and  there  have 
been  periods  of  our  history  when 
presidential  messages  were  utterly 
without  practical  significance,  per- 
functory documents  which  few  per- 
sons except  the  editors  of  newspapers 
took  the  trouble  to  read.  But  if  the 
President  has  personal  force  and 

[53] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

cared  to  exercise  it,  there  is  this 
tremendous  difference  between  his 
messages  and  the  views  of  any  other 
citizen,  either  outside  Congress  or  in 
it:  that  the  whole  country  reads 
them  and  feels  that  the  writer  speaks 
with  an  authority  and  a  responsi- 
bility which  the  people  themselves 
have  given  him. 

The  history  of  our  cabinets  affords 
a  striking  illustration  of  the  progress 
of  the  idea  that  the  President  is 
not  merely  the  legal  head,  but  also 
the  political  leader  of  the  nation. 
In  the  earlier  days  of  the  government 
it  was  customary  for  the  President 
to  fill  his  cabinet  with  the  recognized 
leaders  of  his  party.  General  Wash- 
ington even  tried  the  experiment 
which  William  of  Orange  tried  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  era  of  cabinet 

[54] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

government.  He  called  to  his  aid 
the  leaders  of  both  political  parties, 
associating  Mr.  Hamilton  with  Mr. 
Jefferson,  on  the  theory  that  all 
views  must  be  heard  and  considered 
in  the  conduct  of  the  government. 
That  was  the  day  in  which  English 
precedent  prevailed,  and  English 
cabinets  were  made  up  of  the  chief 
political  characters  of  the  day.  But 
later  years  have  witnessed  a  marked 
change  in  our  practice,  in  this  as  in 
many  other  things.  The  old  tradi- 
tion was  indeed  slow  in  dying  out. 
It  persisted  with  considerable  vital- 
ity at  least  until  General  Garfield's 
day,  and  may  yet  from  time  to  time 
revive,  for  many  functions  of  our 
cabinets  justify  it  and  make  it  de- 
sirable. But  our  later  Presidents 
have  apparently  ceased  to  regard  the 

155] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

cabinet  as  a  council  of  party  leaders 
such  as  the  party  they  represent 
would  have  chosen.  They  look  upon 
it  rather  as  a  body  of  personal  ad- 
visers whom  the  President  chooses 
from  the  ranks  of  those  whom  he 
personally  trusts  and  prefers  to  look 
to  for  advice.  Our  recent  Presidents 
have  not  sought  their  associates 
among  those  whom  the  fortunes  of 
party  contest  have  brought  into 
prominence  and  influence,  but  have 
called  their  personal  friends  and  busi- 
ness colleagues  to  cabinet  positions, 
and  men  who  have  given  proof  of 
their  efficiency  in  private,  not  in 
public,  life, — bankers  who  had  never 
had  any  place  in  the  formal  counsels 
of  the  party,  eminent  lawyers  who 
had  held  aloof  from  politics,  private 
secretaries  who  had  shown  an  un- 

[56] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

usual  sagacity  and  proficiency  in 
handling  public  business;  as  if  the 
President  were  himself  alone  the 
leader  of  his  party,  the  members  of 
his  cabinet  only  his  private  advisers, 
at  any  rate  advisers  of  his  private 
choice.  Mr.  Cleveland  may  be  said 
to  have  been  the  first  President  to 
make  this  conception  of  the  cabinet 
prominent  in  his  choices,  and  he  did 
not  do  so  until  his  second  adminis- 
tration. Mr.  Roosevelt  has  empha- 
sized the  idea. 

Upon  analysis  it  seems  to  mean 
this:  the  cabinet  is  an  executive, 
not  a  political  body.  The  President 
cannot  himself  be  the  actual  execu- 
tive; he  must  therefore  find,  to  act 
in  his  stead,  men  of  the  best  legal 
and  business  gifts,  and  depend  upon 
them  for  the  actual  administration  of 

5  [57] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

the  government  in  all  its  daily  ac- 
tivities. If  he  seeks  political  advice 
of  his  executive  colleagues,  he  seeks 
it  because  he  relies  upon  their  natural 
good  sense  and  experienced  judg- 
ment, upon  their  knowledge  of  the 
country  and  its  business  and  social 
conditions,  upon  their  sagacity  as 
representative  citizens  of  more  than 
usual  observation  and  discretion; 
not  because  they  are  supposed  to 
have  had  any  very  intimate  contact 
with  politics  or  to  have  made  a 
profession  of  public  affairs.  He  has 
chosen,  not  representative  politi- 
cians, but  eminent  representative 
citizens,  selecting  them  rather  for 
their  special  fitness  for  the  great 
business  posts  to  which  he  has  as- 
signed them  than  for  their  political 
experience,  and  looking  to  them  for 


58 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

advice  in  the  actual  conduct  of  the 
government  rather  than  in  the  shap- 
ing of  political  policy.  They  are,  in 
his  view,  not  necessarily  political 
officers  at  all. 

It  may  with  a  great  deal  of  plausi- 
bility be  argued  that  the  Constitu- 
tion looks  upon  the  President  him- 
self in  the  same  way.  It  does  not 
seem  to  make  him  a  prime  minister 
or  the  leader  of  the  nation's  counsels. 
Some  Presidents  are,  therefore,  and 
some  are  not.  It  depends  upon  the 
man  and  his  gifts.  He  may  be  like 
his  cabinet,  or  he  may  be  more  than 
his  cabinet.  His  office  is  a  mere 
vantage-ground  from  which  he  may 
be  sure  that  effective  words  of  advice 
and  timely  efforts  at  reform  will  gain 
telling  momentum.  He  has  the  ear 
of  the  nation  as  of  course,  and  a 

[59] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

great  person  may  use  such  an  advan- 
tage greatly.  If  he  use  the  oppor- 
tunity, he  may  take  his  cabinet  into 
partnership  or  not,  as  he  pleases; 
and  so  its  character  may  vary  with 
his.  Self-reliant  men  will  regard 
their  cabinets  as  executive  councils; 
men  less  self-reliant  or  more  prudent 
will  regard  them  as  also  political 
councils,  and  will  wish  to  call  into 
them  men  who  have  earned  the  con- 
fidence of  their  party.  The  character 
of  the  cabinet  may  be  made  a  nice 
index  of  the  theory  of  the  presiden- 
tial office,  as  well  as  of  the  Presi- 
dent's theory  of  party  government; 
but  the  one  view  is,  so  far  as  I  can 
see,  as  constitutional  as  the  other. 


(60] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 


VI 


ONE  of  the  greatest  of  the  Presi- 
dent's powers  I  have  not  yet 
spoken  of  at  all:  his  control,  which 
is  very  absolute,  of  the  foreign  rela- 
tions of  the  nation.  The  initiative 
in  foreign  affairs,  which  the  President 
possesses  without  any  restriction 
whatever,  is  virtually  the  power  to 
control  them  absolutely.  The  Presi- 
dent cannot  conclude  a  treaty  with 
a  foreign  power  without  the  consent 
of  the  Senate,  but  he  may  guide 
every  step  of  diplomacy,  and  to 
guide  diplomacy  is  to  determine 
what  treaties  must  be  made,  if  the 
faith  and  prestige  of  the  government 

[61] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

are  to  be  maintained.  He  need  dis- 
close no  step  of  negotiation  until  it 
is  complete,  and  when  in  any  critical 
matter  it  is  completed  the  govern- 
ment is  virtually  committed.  What- 
ever its  disinclination,  the  Senate 
may  feel  itself  committed  also. 

I  have  not  dwelt  upon  this  power 
of  the  President,  because  it  has  been 
decisively  influential  in  determining 
the  character  and  influence  of  the 
office  at  only  two  periods  in  our  his- 
tory; at  the  very  first,  when  the 
government  was  young  and  had  so 
to  use  its  incipient  force  as  to  win  the 
respect  of  the  nations  into  whose 
family  it  had  thrust  itself,  and  in  our 
own  day  when  the  results  of  the 
Spanish  War,  the  ownership  of  dis- 
tant possessions,  and  many  sharp 
struggles  for  foreign  trade  make  it 

[62] 


THE   UNITED  STATES 

necessary  that  we  should  turn  our 
best  talents  to  the  task  of  dealing 
firmly,  wisely,  and  justly  with  polit- 
ical and  commercial  rivals.  The 
President  can  never  again  be  the 
mere  domestic  figure  he  has  been 
throughout  so  large  a  part  of  our 
history.  The  nation  has  risen  to  the 
first  rank  in  power  and  resources. 
The  other  nations  of  the  world  look 
askance  upon  her,  half  in  envy,  half 
in  fear,  and  wonder  with  a  deep 
anxiety  what  she  \vill  do  with  her 
vast  strength.  They  receive  the 
frank  professions  of  men  like  Mr. 
John  Hay,  whom  we  wholly  trusted, 
with  a  grain  of  salt,  and  doubt  what 
we  were  sure  of,  their  truthfulness 
and  sincerity,  suspecting  a  hidden 
design  under  every  utterance  they 
make,  Our  President  must  always, 

[63] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

henceforth,  be  one  of  the  great  pow- 
ers of  the  world,  whether  he  act 
greatly  and  wisely  or  not,  and  the 
best  statesmen  we  can  produce  will 
be  needed  to  fill  the  office  of  Secre- 
tary of  State.  We  have  but  begun  to 
see  the  presidential  office  in  this 
light;  but  it  is  the  light  which  will 
more  and  more  beat  upon  it,  and 
more  and  more  determine  its  char- 
acter and  its  effect  upon  the  politics 
of  the  nation.  We  can  never  hide 
our  President  again  as  a  mere  do- 
mestic officer.  We  can  never  again 
see  him  the  mere  executive  he  was  in 
the  thirties  and  forties.  He  must 
stand  always  at  the  front  of  our 
affairs,  and  the  office  will  be  as  big 
and  as  influential  as  the  man  who 
occupies  it. 

JIow  is  it  possible  to  sum  up  the 

[64] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

duties  and  influence  of  such  an  office 
in  such  a  system  in  comprehensive 
terms  which  will  cover  all  its  change- 
ful aspects?  In  the  view  of  the 
makers  of  the  Constitution  the  Presi- 
dent was  to  be  legal  executive;  per- 
haps the  leader  of  the  nation;  cer- 
tainly not  the  leader  of  the  party, 
at  any  rate  while  in  office.  But  by 
the  operation  of  forces  inherent  in 
the  very  nature  of  government  he  has 
become  all  three,  and  by  inevitable 
consequence  the  most  heavily  bur- 
dened officer  in  the  world.  No  other 
man's  day  is  so  full  as  his,  so  full  of 
the  responsibilities  which  tax  mind 
and  conscience  alike  and  demand  an 
inexhaustible  vitality.  The  mere  task 
of  making  appointments  to  office, 
which  the  Constitution  imposes  upon 
the  President,  has  come  near  to 

165) 


breaking  some  of  our  Presidents 
down,  because  it  is  a  never-ending 
task  in  a  civil  service  not  yet  put 
upon  a  professional  footing,  confused 
with  short  terms  of  office,  always 
forming  and  dissolving.  And  in  pro- 
portion as  the  President  ventures  to 
use  his  opportunity  to  lead  opinion 
and  act  as  spokesman  of  the  people 
in  affairs  the  people  stand  ready  to 
overwhelm  him  by  running  to  him 
with  every  question,  great  and  small. 
They  are  as  eager  to  have  him  settle 
a  literary  question  as  a  political; 
hear  him  as  acquiescently  with  re- 
gard to  matters  of  expert  knowledge 
as  with  regard  to  public  affairs,  and 
call  upon  him  to  quiet  all  troubles 
by  his  personal  intervention.  Men 
of  ordinary  physique  and  discretion 
cannot  be  Presidents  and  live,  if  the 

[66] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

strain  be  not  somehow  relieved.  We 
shall  be  obliged  always  to  be  picking 
our  chief  magistrates  from  among 
wise  and  prudent  athletes, — a  small 
class. 

The  future  development  of  the 
presidency,  therefore,  must  certainly, 
one  would  confidently  predict,  run 
along  such  lines  as  the  President's 
later  relations  with  his  cabinet  sug- 
gest. General  Washington,  partly 
out  of  unaffected  modesty,  no  doubt, 
but  also  out  of  the  sure  practical  in- 
stinct which  he  possessed  in  so  un- 
usual a  degree,  set  an  example  which 
few  of  his  successors  seem  to  have 
followed  in  any  systematic  manner. 
He  made  constant  and  intimate  use 
of  his  colleagues  in  every  matter  that 
he  handled,  seeking  their  assistance 
and  advice  by  letter  when  they  were 

[67] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

at  a  distance  and  he  could  not  obtain 
it  in  person.  It  is  well  known  to 
all  close  students  of  our  history  that 
his  greater  state  papers,  even  those 
which  seem  in  some  peculiar  and  in- 
timate sense  his  personal  utterances, 
are  full  of  the  ideas  and  the  very 
phrases  of  the  men  about  him  whom 
he  most  trusted.  His  rough  draughts 
came  back  to  him  from  Mr.  Hamil- 
ton and  Mr.  Madison  in  great  part 
rephrased  and  rewritten,  in  many 
passages  reconceived  and  given  a  new 
color.  He  thought  and  acted  always 
by  the  light  of  counsel,  with  a  will 
and  definite  choice  of  his  own,  but 
through  the  instrumentality  of  other 
minds  as  well  as  his  own. 

The  duties  and  responsibilities  laid 
upon  the  President  by  the  Constitu- 
tion can  be  changed  only  by  constj- 

[68] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

tutional  amendment, — a  thing  too 
difficult  to  attempt  except  upon  some 
greater  necessity  than  the  relief  of 
an  overburdened  office,  even  though 
that  office  be  the  greatest  in  the  land; 
and  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  the 
deliberate  opinion  of  the  country 
would  consent  to  make  of  the  Presi- 
dent a  less  powerful  officer  than  he  is. 
He  can  secure  his  own  relief  without 
shirking  any  real  responsibility.  Ap- 
pointments, for  example,  he  can,  if 
he  will,  make  more  and  more  upon 
the  advice  and  choice  of  his  execu- 
tive colleagues;  every  matter  of  de- 
tail not  only,  but  also  every  minor 
matter  of  counsel  or  of  general  pol- 
icy, he  can  more  and  more  depend 
upon  his  chosen  advisers  to  deter- 
mine; he  need  reserve  for  himself 
only  the  larger  matters  of  counsel 

[69] 


THE  PRESIDENT  OF 

and  that  general  oversight  of  the 
business  of  the  government  and  of 
the  persons  who  conduct  it  which  is 
not  possible  without  intimate  daily 
consultations,  indeed,  but  which  is 
possible  without  attempting  the  in- 
tolerable burden  of  direct  control. 
This  is,  no  doubt,  the  idea  of  their 
functions  which  most  Presidents 
have  entertained  and  which  most 
Presidents  suppose  themselves  to 
have  acted  on;  but  we  have  reason 
to  believe  that  most  of  our  Presi- 
dents have  taken  their  duties  too  lit- 
erally and  have  attempted  the  im- 
possible. But  we  can  safely  predict 
that  as  the  multitude  of  the  Presi- 
dent's duties  increases,  as  it  must 
with  the  growth  and  widening  activi- 
ties of  the  nation  itself,  the  incum- 
bents of  the  great  office  will  more 

[70] 


THE  UNITED  STATES 

and  more  come  to  feel  that  they  are 
administering  it  in  its  truest  purpose 
and  with  greatest  effect  by  regard- 
ing themselves  as  less  and  less  execu- 
tive officers  and  more  and  more 
directors  of  affairs  and  leaders  of  the 
nation, — men  of  counsel  and  of  the 
sort  of  action  that  makes  for  enlight- 
enment. 


THE   END 


ii  in  mi  HI n  MI »••"••" "'"'"•• 

A     000677119     o 


